CU-1C-1946-03 Cud

Description

The first fully post-war Lincoln cent, the 1946 Philadelphia issue marks the beginning of peacetime coinage — and CU-1C-1946-03 documents a cud error from that transition year. With the war over, the Mint continued using the shell-casing brass alloy introduced in 1944, composed of 95% copper and 5% zinc without the tin present in pre-war bronze. Philadelphia's 1946 output of approximately 991 million cents remained enormous, reflecting pent-up demand as the economy shifted from military to consumer production. At that volume, die attrition was guaranteed, and some working dies fractured at the rim rather than wearing out gradually. A cud — the raised, featureless mass produced when a broken die section detaches — is the most dramatic form of rim failure, obliterating design elements beneath a smooth plateau of displaced metal. As the third documented cud for the 1946 Philadelphia cent, CU-1C-1946-03 contributes to the die break record for a year that bridged wartime improvisation and the eventual return to standard bronze. Documented by the Cuds on Coins project and cross-referenced under its catalog designation.

Attribution History

• Discovered by Keynumis on ebay
• CU-1C-1946-03
• Expert attribution by Cuds on Coins

External References